And we have a closet!

After 6 months of planning and storing stained and finished wood in our house, our closet is nearly done and we are beyond ready. 

Saturday

Dallin's parents came over on Saturday to help us with our project, and his dad assisted Dallin and I all day until we had done as much as we possibly could. We started with the bones of the project: the 1x2" boards we've referred to as "cleats". Each "cleat" supports a shelf, so that the shelf can be screwed into the cleat in the back against the wall. In our master, color-coded plan (which is shown at the bottom of this post), we marked the measurements from the floor to the top of each of these, as our ceiling height is not level and therefore not to be trusted! That proved incredibly irritating throughout the rest of this project, as you will soon see. 

The cleats were also used to secure the four upright boards by drilling through them into the sides of the cleats. On all of our cleats, as we could not find any conveniently-placed studs anywhere on this ridiculous wall, we used four drywall anchors each to secure them to the wall. Each anchor is tested to hold 75 pounds, so we're pretty confident this won't come crashing down anytime soon.

Our design had larger 2x4" cleats across the top to support the "ceiling" that will lay atop the whole system. (Our ceiling is coming soon, it requires a lot of glue, clamps, and patience!) Unfortunately, we did not account for the molding board running across the top of the ceiling (seen above) when making our measurements. So we had to take our 2x4s and cut notches through them in order to safely attach them to the wall, and still have room above to screw in the ceiling. This also proved obnoxious, as the molding board running across the whole width of the closet area was (you guessed it!) not level! Where it meets the closet on the top left corner is an entire inch or so lower than where it meets at the top right. 

For these top boards, we had to use the longest screws we could find, that still worked with the drywall anchors, to get through the additional inch of wood. Ridiculously enough, as if we didn't have enough weird things to worry about, because our room was an addition to the original home, we're pretty sure what lies behind our drywall is once-external brick, so when choosing screws, we had to make sure they were long enough to get through the drywall, but short enough that they wouldn't hit the brick behind it.

Once all cleats were installed, we inserted the upright boards and secured them as well as we could. The shelves soon proved difficult, as our slight imperfections when cutting them so many months ago translated into askew boards and difficult leveling. It was a three-person job installing each shelf: one to hold the shelf perfectly in place after finding the perfect, level spot; one to drill, countersink the hole, and screw in three places on each side of the shelf; and another to switch out the bits on the drill each time. We would discover the beauty of clamps the next day when we only had two people to work with. After making sure the board was as level as possible, we drilled four slightly angled screws in the back of the shelf into the previously-installed cleats.

We installed the baseboard for the left section as well, which would soon hold our laundry hamper behind it while keeping a consistent look across the bottom. During our breaks on Saturday, I took the curtain rods we had purchased, and measured, marked, and cut them to fit our three hanging sections within the closet. We will soon cut and install another 12" rod for the right side between the closet and the wall, which will hold longer coats and dresses, but cutting through those bars with nothing but a little hacksaw was tough! 

Sunday

After a good night's sleep, we took to installing the five shelves in the middle section of the closet. However, because the shelves on the outer portions were now pushing in on the upright boards, there were some slight fitting issues, and all of the middle shelves were fitting wonky. The right front corner of the boards were sitting flush with the upright, while the front left corners sat almost a half inch inside it, and the back right corners had a good bit of gap between the shelf and the wall. Even though we could tell it was an issue with the uprights, as every single board was having this same problem, we decided to sand down the edges of the shelves to make them fit better. At this point we had come to terms with the fact that no part of this closet was going to be perfectly square, or look level with the wall; as long as it was level to the ground and fit within itself, we would be happy.

After sanding, and even using a chisel at one point, the boards were fitting as well as we could make them, and we installed them identically to the outside shelves. The middle shelf on the bottom was tricky, since it was the only place with two shelves installed parallel to each other. On these, since we couldn't install them from the sides, Dallin took some spare, finished pieces of wood from trimming the top 2x4 cleats, and placed them below the shelves like feet, screwing into them from the top of the shelf as if they were more cleats.

Once we installed the rod holders for the clothes racks, we were finally finished! Well... as finished as we can get for now. What you see on the top left will soon have two upright 1/4" thick dividers with another 2x4 between them, but we had forgotten to notch those with the cleats, so they do not fit back against the wall. Those will wait until we have access to a table saw again. Besides this, we also still need to install our shoe rack in the bottom center using a few thick dowels; however, the dowels are an inch too short to reach across the 25" width. We will use more small cubes of spare, finished wood on either side of the dowels to keep them centered, drilling into both from the side through the upright beams to secure them. Once that is finished, we will only need to lay the "ceiling" boards on top, screw them in, and voila! A finished piece of art. 

Sometime in the near future, we are also planning to install a shallow drawer into the center 6" shelf.

Here is our closet in all its functional glory. We can finally throw away the broken, leaning clothing racks we have been using for the last 8 months!